


A Midwinter Night's Dream [Extract]

by dzae



Category: Irish Mythology, Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 04:31:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17277110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dzae/pseuds/dzae





	A Midwinter Night's Dream [Extract]

_[Page resembles a manuscript draft, torn and singed. Annotations have been added in a different hand.]_

And I the tyrant queen for mayfly deaths?  
What leave have they, whose twisted governance  
Directs to count the shepherd with the sheep,1  
To bless each day but curse the season full?  
I’ll make my peace with darkness. Shades, to me!  
Blot out half creation, still the pipes,  
Tear each impersonal sphere from heaven  
Until the fates weave blindly and the sky  
Unpins to shroud my workings in the fall!2

Come,3 wraith-remnants of the ocean  
Heirs to eons now forgotten,  
Come, you heaven-torn besotten  
Branches burned by spurned devotion.4  
Come, you sprites of blood stained sceptre,  
Bound to serve each ruling sister.  
Come, each rebel and resistor,5  
Death beset by Hades’ spectres.

Wake, beasts and sprites and scars of old. Rise up!  
Wake, Beelzebub, and hear my offering!  
If grief you’ll take, then make a trade of sorrow.6  
_A wing’s ichor overfills the cup._  
_A name bound: an evil time to bring._ 7  
Then fly, bough-bird, and meet with death tomorrow.8

The gate has opened: my sister rises!  
_[Illegible]_

* * *

 

1 Fate, stars, our Lord: linked?

2 Is this reference Satanic or seasonal? Must inquire.

3 Something of a verbal tic for our muse, here and prior.

4 Petrarchan influences, more’s the pity. Clear reference to Marlowe and Apollo. Given the true author of this piece, how accurate was LXXXVI?

5 Octave has two parts according to rhyming schema, somewhat unusually. Introduces theme of summoning, consolidation of power, but then why two parts?

6 Sestet has inconsistent meter: three pairs of 10, 11, 9, scattered and overall disjointed. References each to Satan, sacrifice and prophecy?

7 Prophecy delivered in different tense each time: why?

8 Follows from earlier condition in the pair? Consistent styling within lines paired by meter.


End file.
